TheDC’s top 2012 stories, part 1: The ‘Obama administration off the rails’ edition

The Daily Caller published more than 19,300 pieces of content in 2012, including everything from breaking news to those bikini slideshows that our readers have a habit of clicking on when no one is watching. (We’re not judging.)

Ten of those stories stood out because they were either immensely popular, deeply controversial, or completely unexpected. So a little retrospective is in order.

Every day this week we’ll invite you to relive two of our most compelling moments from 2012. These stories might have made you angry or gleeful, or maybe they led you to poke your spouse in the ribs and say, “See, I told you so!”

But however you reacted, they met our number-one test for publication: They were interesting.

Today we revisit two such stories that the Obama White House probably wishes we would forget.

Daily Caller White House Correspondent Neil Munro found himself in his peers’ and colleagues’ crosshairs on June 15 after a Rose Garden “press conference” — the air quotes are intentional — during which President Barack Obama declined to take any questions from the press.

Munro, in what seemed to be an odd departure from the norm since early 2009, asked a question anyway.

He did his job. And he was skewered for it, with some media outlets describing him as a heckler, and others accusing him of being a blogger.

Neither was true, but it certainly beats being a stenographer — a point this editor made repeatedly to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney when he called to vent his outrage in some rather colorful language.

It’s worth noting that beginning five days later, the president went seven weeks without taking a single question from a reporter.

President Barack Obama declined to take any questions from reporters about his controversial and significant decision to offer a de facto amnesty to at least 800,000 foreigners aged 15 to 30.

The president turned and walked away from reporters at the end of an early afternoon address in the White House’s Rose Garden, even though two reporters called out questions about his decision.

The announcement of the decision comes at a time of record unemployment among low-skilled workers, Hispanics and African-Americans. …

Sometimes, the president does answer shouted questions. At the end of a March 23 Rose garden event, for example, he answered a shouted question about Trayvon Martin, a Florida youth killed in February.

On Friday The Daily Caller asked a question as his speech appeared to be ending.

The president rebuked TheDC, but then he declined to answer any other questions when he finished his carefully crafted statement.

He declined to answer TheDC’s shouted question about the impact of his new policy on American workers. He also failed to answer another reporter’s question.

In previous administrations, some reporters used the tactic very effectively. ABC’s Sam Donaldson, for example, was famous for his shouted questions to President George H.W. Bush.